critical theory with slavoj zizek: Stalker, when confronted with the “Golden Sphere” - as the Room in which desires are realized is called in the novel -, does undergo a kind of spiritual conversion, but this experience is much closer to what Lacan called “subjective destitution”: an abrupt awareness of the utter meaningless of our social links, the dissolution of our attachment to reality itself - all of a sudden, other people are derealized, reality itself is experienced as a confused whirlpool of shapes and sounds, so that we are no longer able to formulate our desire.